Even a Death Row inmate can accept or reject a pardon handed down from the Governor. God governs our reality and has seen fit to offer us a pardon. Accept God's plan of Salvation for yourself! Through belief, by faith in Jesus Christ, we re-establish spiritual fellowship with our Creator. Once pardoned, our prayer and our meditation on the Word of God, via the instruction of the Holy Spirit (Who is then free to be intimate with our souls because of the cleansing blood shed by Christ), reveals the Creator's will for our life. The purpose of our being becomes apparent; opening up the abundant life we were created to experience.

Surrender is nothing to brag about, but when toward God, it produces transforming results!

Surrender toward God is an eraser to our PRIDE (our sense that we are superior to others). Lucifer, the most powerful created being, fell to PRIDE. His PRIDE enabled him to question God's authority as the Governor of reality. Our PRIDE needs immediate attention at all times, for it shall surely destroy the abundant life we were created for. God's intentions for us are perfectly good and are coming from an eternal perspective that in and of ourselves we cannot know. By creating beings with intelligence and free-will, God has taken the ultimate chance. With our limited perspective of reality, we can develop a PRIDE about ourselves capable of executing the atrocities we have seen perpetrated by mankind throughout history. However, God having created us in His image (the incarnate Jesus Christ thrust into our time domain as a flesh and blood human being), has opened the door to a real ability to have a meaningful relationship with Him.

Eph 2:8-108 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,9not of works, lest anyone should boast.10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Sincerity with God is the most powerful instigator for change, for on that sincerity is forged an intimate relationship with our Creator! The changes God wants to make in our life through fellowship in Jesus Christ, always leads us to the joy that this material world alone fails to provide; resulting in progressively more authentic character based on God's perfect values. This of course does not make us perfect, for while we live in this world as it is today, sin abounds.

However, the biggest modern detour to character growth in our lives is as follows:

Knowledge is deceptive in that gaining it one is left with the impression of character growth. Because knowledge is limitless, rational people can be tricked into believing they can continue to progressively grow. Highly intelligent people who have little to no authentic character do not have the wisdom to use their knowledge. This is why the simple person who has Godly character exhibits more wisdom than the person with high intelligence who is lacking in Godly character.

Attaining knowledge via science or secular understandings of reality is limited in its truth seeking apparatus, for it chooses to disregard the supernatural (not to be confused with superstition). Because it cannot test or know truths about supernatural events, science and secular views are forced to not consider the influence these events have on the totality of our reality. Science and technology are entertaining, and sometimes helpful, but they contain a considerable blind spot. I truly enjoy Science, but it is not something you want to base your worldview on, for pure science is constrained to amorality. Knowledge cannot add a millimeter to a person's character; as evidenced by the overwhelming perversion that permeates modern Academia. For this reason, knowledge is not worthy of worship! Only the Omniscient (all-knowing) One is worthy of worship. In no way does this imply that God is against our attaining knowledge. God forbid! He has provided us with a wondrous reality to explore and discover!

Hbr 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

"As we shall see, modern science today is an atheistic facade on a theistic superstructure. Not only the foundation but much of the interior that holds up the structure was built largely by creationists, and they were building on the Word of God....As a material system made by a transcendent Creator, it (the Word of God) can and should be studied as a means to gain wisdom." (emphasis added) David F. Coppedge

Wisdom and understanding can only come from God (His correct perspective on our reality), and He has intentionally given us a repository of information. The Holy Bible - an integrated sixty-six book message inspired by God, via the Holy Spirit, primarily to His chosen people (Hebrews) - having been examined by millions of the most rational Western minds for over two thousand years, has demonstrably transformed lives in miraculous ways. The Biblical scriptures (aka The Word, which in totality is a revelation of Jesus Christ) are the foundation from God to rightly perceive our reality.

The Bible is authentic and can be taken straightforwardly, except when it clearly designates otherwise (passages that clearly point out the flaws and decisions made by the ungodly should not be considered instruction). All individuals, based solely on its good influence on Western Civilization, should undertake an unbiased study of the text in the entire Bible.

Jesus Christ is the answer. Recognize your need for forgiveness and receive His Salvation!

Moses was instructed to construct a brass serpent and place it atop a pole. When bitten by asps, the Israelis were told they could look to the brass serpent (symbolically representing 'brass=judged' 'serpent=sin') for healing. The cross of Jesus Christ has an even greater power to heal when we look to it for Salvation, for it cleanses us of all our sin and His resurrection assures us that we will have eternal life with our Creator based on our sin that has been judged at Christ's cross.

Jhn 3:14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

Mat 17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

Repentance is a recognition of our need for forgiveness (no person can be called good). Salvation is what we receive when we recognize Jesus' finished work on the cross as a ransom to buy our forgiveness. Adam broke spiritual fellowship with the Creator when he chose to disobey (Eve was deceived and Adam chose to love and join her in her failure), which has been passed down to every single human born of man and woman since Adam, but Jesus Christ's shed blood, as a result of death on a cross, is cleansing because of His deity, demonstrated by His continual perfect obedience to the Father (being without sin, only Jesus can be called good and holy). Believers in Jesus are made right with God based solely on our faith that forgiveness was paid for by the perfectly innocent and holy man, Jesus Christ's death on the cross.

Deu 4:29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find [him], if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

The Father, Son & Holy Spirit have been in a perfect loving relationship as the ONE God for eternity. Their shared attributes of Omniscience (all-knowing), Omnipresence (aware of everything everywhere) and Omnipotence (having the power to do anything at any time), are what make them ONE. Because of these shared attributes, there is never a hint of debate or indecision, which makes them eternally ONE in purpose. Because their triunity is a relationship of pure love, we have a relational God who desires us to experience perfect fellowship with the Holy Majesty of the eternal Triune GOD. Therein lies the potential for an abundant life.

Jesus Christ is eternally God, in the person of the Son. Of the Trinity (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) the Son was chosen to be injected into our time domain to affect our redemption. The Holy Spirit has been chosen to supernaturally embody all believers to affect a perfect relationship with the Father and Son, who are from our current perspective, outside of time (inhabiting eternity). The attributes of the Triune Creator require inhabiting eternity and is a Biblical concept that separates Judeo-Christian teaching from all others (and happens to be why the ancient authors of scripture, who wrote about the nature of God, were inspired beyond our modern scientific understandings of reality).

Isa 57:15 For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Hbr 5:8-98 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

John 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

John 10:18"No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."

When studying the Holy Bible, it is important to realize that there are two perspectives presented. One perspective is from the standpoint of eternity, whereby time does not influence the understanding of reality. The other perspective is from within our time domain, where a past, present & future have relevance to understanding. Prophetic passages throughout the Bible become much easier to grasp when one takes these perspectives into account. Many of the seeming Scriptural contradictions that spawn cultic doctrines, are a basic failure to take these two perspectives into account. For example, some cults posit that Jesus Christ is not God based on this passage and similar others:

Mat 24:36"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

If Jesus is the eternal God, how could He not know the day or the hour of His own return? Readers fail to take into consideration that Jesus is within our time domain when He spoke these words, and that He had chosen to lay aside His eternal perspective (viewing reality from outside of time) to become a full in the flesh human being for His incarnation (this is also why He said "This command I have received from My Father." Jesus had the power, but relied on His Father from eternity to execute supernaturally for Him while within our time domain and Jesus instructed us to do the same through prayer to our heavenly Father). With these perspectives in mind, most difficult passages in the Scripture become comprehensible. To think that most of the Bible was written by goat herders thousands of years ago, and yet their grasp of reality was greater than the PROUD modern scientist and philosophers of Academia.

Hbr 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

Phl 2:6-86 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

All bolded and underlined emphasis added by bondserv. You can email me at bondserv@cox.net if you want to comment or correspond.